I tire more easily these days than when I was younger. That’s to be expected of an aging body, of course. I certainly expected it. What I didn’t expect was the onset of a steadily deepening intellectual weariness, born of having to say the same things over and over again, as if no one were listening previously. Instead of the willingness to explain, I’m beset by fatigue and a kind of resignation: “They don’t get it. Maybe they never will.”
The nonsense about America having violated Venezuela’s sovereignty has triggered that reaction. Domestic Leftists and international opponents of the Trump Administration are shrieking it as if it were God’s own law. Permit me a little foreshadowing: it isn’t.
I’ve been here before innumerable times. “It’s such a simple thing!” I mutter to myself. I want to shake it off and think about anything else, but when the subject is this important, I can’t allow myself to do that.
Okay, Gentle Reader. One more time.
In my Baseline Essay on this subject, I wrote:
One of the key concepts in international political discourse is sovereignty: the attribute a State possesses when it is effectively unchallenged within its boundaries, and is conceded by other States to be legitimate in that position. At one time, we spoke of "sovereigns" -- kings -- who were literally the personal possessors of the power of their States. Today the concept is more diffuse, extending to the government as a distributed entity rather than to an absolute monarch.
Sovereignty is less a thing possessed by right than a thing conceded. The concession is important, for a State is unlikely to be able to hold its own against any and all opposition. A sufficiently large, sufficiently well motivated coalition of other States could bring it down. So State A's sovereignty depends more on the indulgence of other States, for whatever reasons, than on its claims to legitimacy.
Now and then that becomes rather obvious. The Taliban claimed sovereignty over Afghanistan, but America decided otherwise. Saddam Hussein's Baathist dictatorship claimed sovereignty over Iraq, but once again, America decided otherwise.
I thought that was a clear, easily comprehended statement. And to be fair, some did read and understand it. But many did not. More to the point, many refuse to understand it. It cross-cuts their agenda.
The treaties we call the Peace of Westphalia, signed in the German cities of Munster and Osnabruck in 1648, constitute the first attempt of the Christian Era to define sovereignty. The great quarrels of the era had been about religion, but as always when States are involved, the real issue was force: who possesses it, who authorizes its use, and what others may “legitimately” do about it.
The conception of sovereignty reached then was a compromise. It sought to achieve a limitation upon warmaking, which up to then had been practiced not just by kings but by lesser powers avid to impose their wills upon others of their kind. The Westphalian treaties explicitly reserved the privilege of warmaking to monarchs – sovereigns – and forbade it to others. But note this: those treaties did not call into existence a supranational entity with the power to enforce that agreement. The job was left to the aforementioned monarchs.
Here we are, 378 years later, and there is still no supranational entity capable of enforcing anyone’s sovereignty against anyone else’s contrary opinion. The reason is quite simple: the States of Earth will not permit it.
If such a supranational organization were to exist, it alone would be indisputably sovereign; i.e., it alone would possess sufficient power to sustain itself against the contentions of “lesser” States. Those lesser ones would exist and wield power only for as long as the supra-State should allow it.
The national governments of Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America would never have given the United Nations that kind of power. It would have reduced them to vassals of the UN, utterly dependent upon its dictates – and those who govern the UN would have made sure that the condition would be permanent.
Thus, when I wrote:
The States of Earth exist in an anarchic relation to one another. Each has its own regional code of law, which might differ markedly from all the others. Despite several thrusts at the matter over the centuries, there is no "super-State" to enforce a uniform code of law over them all. More, they view one another as competitors in many different areas; their populations and institutions are often in sharp economic competition with one another. Thus, they are often at odds. They resolve important disputes among them through negotiation or warfare.
…I didn’t think I needed to explain why; in my naivety I thought it would be “obvious.” The States of Earth want it that way.
The sovereignty of Venezuela’s government was wholly dependent upon the tacit agreement, by other States, that they would refrain from toppling it. Time was, in this connection a State only had to worry about its geographical neighbors. That’s not the case any longer. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and Red China have “long arms.” Each possesses sufficient power to negate the sovereignty of other states… provided the other two permit it.
That is all “sovereignty” means today. It’s also what passes for “stability” today. No one has to like it. I’m sure Nicolas Maduro doesn’t.
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